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Re: AP Exclusive: IRS knew tea party targeted in 2011

So it is bad when the IRS is used as a political tool, but when the military and Justice departments are used as political tools, then it is not a problem?

I never said that either. I hate with any Government agency is used as a political tool.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. H.L Mencken

Re: AP Exclusive: IRS knew tea party targeted in 2011

Originally Posted by notquiteright

Actually the Unions were targeted by the IRS, FBI, and Treasury during the great Mafia sweeps. I remember many union key members doing the perp walk into court over taxes, lifestyles above their declared income and the like.

Who got Al Capone, the FBI or the IRS?

So more then 30 years ago and because REAL crime was taken place. When is the AFL-CIO's slush fund for democratic donations been looked at.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. H.L Mencken

Re: AP Exclusive: IRS knew tea party targeted in 2011

time mag: on the same page with nixon

The Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups is outrageous. Those who did this should be fired immediately. That’s obvious.

It continues a slovenly week for Barack Obama. The President has been very proud of the absence of scandal in his administration, and rightly so. The inability of his opponents to find any significant corruption in the historic $800 billion stimulus package was a real achievement, given the speed of the payout. None of his top aides have been caught up in taking bribes while in office–although their race through the revolving door into lucrative private sector positions is well beyond nauseating.

As in most presidencies, there have been an awful lot of political hacks populating the mid-reaches of this Administration. In the Obama instance, these have shown an anachronistic, pre-Clinton liberal bias when it comes to the rules and regulations governing many of our safety net programs, like social security disability. And now they have violated one of the more sacred rules of our democracy: you do not use the tax code to punish your opponents.

Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the “absolutely inappropriate” actions by “front-line people” were not driven by partisan motives.

Does anyone actually believe this?

Yet again, we have an example of Democrats simply not managing the government properly and with discipline. This is just poisonous at a time of skepticism about the efficacy of government. And the President should know this: the absence of scandal is not the presence of competence. His unwillingness to concentrate–and I mean concentrate obsessively–on making sure that government is managed efficiently will be part of his legacy.

Previous presidents, including great ones like Roosevelt, have used the IRS against their enemies. But I don’t think Barack Obama ever wanted to be on the same page as Richard Nixon. In this specific case, he now is.